Governance of Natural Resources
This course departs from the insight that natural resource governance is as much about managing people as it is about managing nature. The course provides students with tools for understanding different ways in which control and access over natural resources are collectively organized and governed, and the different social, economic and ecological conditions that underpins various forms of environmental dilemmas. The course deals with the inter-linkages between natural resource management and rural change from a cross-disciplinarily perspective. Through an exploration of different concepts and perspectives from social theory and political ecology the course critically analyses different natural resource dilemmas from different contrasting contexts at different scales.
The course covers relevant theoretical concepts and approaches concerning the governance of natural resources and enables students to reflect and use these in class discussions and individual and/or group exercises. The development of the student’s generic competence and capabilities constitute an important part of the course and the course consists of a mixture of lectures, individual and/or group works, which are presented and discussed during seminars.
Information from the course leader
Dear all,
Welcome to the course Governance of Natural Resource 2025/26 (LU0093).
We look forward to seeing you all on the course introduction on Monday November 3 at 10hrs, in Sal K in the Education Building (Undervisningshuset) at campus Ultuna.
Please read through the course materials on Canvas before we meet, do the required preparations for the first sessions and bring any questions that you might have.
All best,
Noémi, Linus and Emil
Course evaluation
Additional course evaluations for LU0093
Academic year 2024/2025
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20109)
2024-11-01 - 2025-01-19
Academic year 2023/2024
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20160)
2023-10-31 - 2024-01-14
Academic year 2022/2023
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20067)
2022-11-01 - 2023-01-15
Academic year 2021/2022
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2021-11-02 - 2022-01-16
Academic year 2020/2021
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20132)
2020-11-02 - 2021-01-17
Academic year 2019/2020
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20043)
2019-11-01 - 2020-01-19
Academic year 2018/2019
Governance of Natural Resources (LU0093-20108)
2018-11-05 - 2019-01-20
Syllabus and other information
Syllabus
LU0093 Governance of Natural Resources, 15.0 Credits
Naturresursernas organisering och samhällsstyrningSubjects
Rural DevelopmentEducation cycle
Master’s levelModules
| Title | Credits | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Single module | 15.0 | 0201 |
Advanced study in the main field
Second cycle, has only first-cycle course/s as entry requirementsMaster’s level (A1N)
Grading scale
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.
Language
EnglishPrior knowledge
Knowledge equivalent to 180 credits, including 90 credits within a particular major within humanities, social or natural sciences. Knowledge equivalent to English 6 (Swedish educational system).Objectives
The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge related to the governance of natural resources.
After completion of the course, the student should be able to:
Distinguish between major theoretical approaches to the understanding of sustainability dilemmas and the underpinning assumptions that they are based upon.
Apply concepts and theories from political ecology and other social science related fields to understand different environmental dilemmas.
Appraise how different policies and institutions impact on resource governance in different contexts and at different scales.
Distinguish between different and competing discourses of sustainable development in relation to different natural resource governance dilemmas.
Explain problems and challenges associated with different natural resource governance arrangements and on a general level describe how they are embedded institutionally at different levels and scales.
Content
The course covers relevant theoretical concepts and approaches concerning the governance of natural resources and enables students to reflect and use these in class discussions and individual and/or group exercises. The exercises draw from examples taken from case studies coming from different contrasting contexts. The development of the student’s generic competence and capabilities constitute an important part of the course and the course consists of a mixture of lectures, individual and/or group works, which are presented and discussed during seminars.
The course is based on the insight that natural resource governance is as much about managing people as it is about managing nature. The course provides students with tools for understanding different ways in which control and access over natural resources are collectively organized and governed, and the different social, economic and ecological conditions that underpins various forms of environmental dilemmas. The course deals with the inter-linkages between natural resource management and rural change from a cross-disciplinarily perspective. Through an exploration of different concepts and perspectives from social theory and political ecology the course critically analyses different natural resource governance dilemmas.
Grading form
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.Formats and requirements for examination
Approved home exam, approved participation in compulsory seminars and approved written assignments.
If a student has failed an examination, the examiner has the right to issue supplementary assignments. This applies if it is possible and there are grounds to do so.
The examiner can provide an adapted assessment to students entitled to study support for students with disabilities following a decision by the university. Examiners may also issue an adapted examination or provide an alternative way for the students to take the exam.
If this syllabus is withdrawn, SLU may introduce transitional provisions for examining students admitted based on this syllabus and who have not yet passed the course.
For the assessment of an independent project (degree project), the examiner may also allow a student to add supplemental information after the deadline for submission. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Other information
The right to participate in teaching and/or supervision only applies for the course instance the student was admitted to and registered on.
If there are special reasons, students are entitled to participate in components with compulsory attendance when the course is given again. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Responsible department
Department of Urban and Rural Development
Further information
Litterature list
This literature list is subject to be completed with other materials. Please refer to the Canvas page that will be open four weeks before the course start.
**Week 4****5 – Introduction & **Foundations of Resource Governance: Theories, Institutions and Dilemmas- Part 1
Lecture**: Introduction to Natural Resource Governance: institutions, property, territory, collective action**
**Obligatory readings: **
Valdivia, G., Himley, M., & Havice, E. (2021). Critical resource geography: An introduction. In The Routledge handbook of critical resource geography (pp. 1-20). Routledge.
Bridge, G., & Perreault, T. (2009). Environmental governance. A companion to environmental geography, 475-497.
**Week 4****6 – Introduction & **Foundations of Resource Governance: Theories, Institutions and Dilemmas – Part 2
Lecture: Theorising resource governance dilemmas** **- key concepts and perspectives 1 (common property theory, institutional analysis, SES)
**Obligatory readings: **
Mehta, L, Leach, M. and Scoones, I. (2025) ‘Editorial: Environmental Governance in an Uncertain World’, IDS Bulletin 56.1A: 1–9, DOI: 10.19088/1968-2025.102
Hardin, G. "The tragedy of the commons." Environmental ethics. Routledge, 2013. 185-196.
Ostrom, E., et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges. Science, 1999. 284(5412): p. 278-282 doi:10.1126/science.284.5412.278.
Boyd, R., et al., Tragedy revisited. Science, 2018. 362(6420): p. 1236-1241 doi:10.1126/science.aaw0911.
Rockström, J., et al., The planetary commons: A new paradigm for safeguarding Earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024. 121(5): p. e2301531121 doi:10.1073/pnas.2301531121.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Agrawal, A. 2001. Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources. World Development 29(10); 1649-1672.
Cleaver, F.D. and de Koning, J., 2015. Furthering critical institutionalism. International Journal of the Commons, 9(1), pp.1–18
Lecture: Theorising resource governance dilemmas** - key concepts and perspectives 2 (political economy, multi-level governance political ecology)**
**Obligatory readings: **
Kallis, G. and E. Swyngedouw, Do Bees Produce Value? A Conversation Between an Ecological Economist and a Marxist Geographer. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2018. 29(3): p. 36-50 10.1080/10455752.2017.1315830.
Robbins, P. Political ecology: A critical Introduction. Read chapters 1-4 (read chapters from edition 2 or 3)
Garcia, A., et al., Power in resilience and resilience's power in climate change scholarship. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.762(e762) https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.762.
Mikulewicz, M., Thwarting adaptation’s potential? A critique of resilience and climate-resilient development. Geoforum, 2019. 104: p. 267-282 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.010.
**Additional suggested readings: **
Bonds, A., Refusing resilience: the racialization of risk and resilience. Urban Geography, 2018. 39(8): p. 1285-1291 10.1080/02723638.2018.1462968.
Forsyth, T., Is resilience to climate change socially inclusive? Investigating theories of change processes in Myanmar. World Development, 2018. 111: p. 13-26 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.06.023.
**Week 4****7 – **The Objects and Instruments of Governance – Part 1
Lecture: Climate Governance Climate Justice and carbon colonialism
**Obligatory readings: **
Sultana, F., The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality. Political Geography, 2022. 99: p. 102638
Whyte, K., Indigenous climate change studies: Indigenizing futures, decolonizing the Anthropocene. English Language Notes, 2017. 55(1): p. 153-162
Thompson, K.-L. and N.C. Ban, “Turning to the territory”: A Gitga’at Nation case study of Indigenous climate imaginaries and actions. Geoforum, 2021.
Gonda, N., et al., Resilience and conflict: rethinking climate resilience through Indigenous territorial struggles. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2023. 50: p. 2312-2338
**Additional suggested readings: **
Bouzarovski, S., Just Transitions: A Political Ecology Critique. Antipode, 2022. 54(4): p. 1003-1020 https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12823.
Sareen, S., et al., Solidaric solarities: Governance principles for transforming solar power relations. Progress in Environmental Geography, 2023. 2(3): p. 143-165 10.1177/27539687231190656.
Macgregor, S., Only Resist: Feminist Ecological Citizenship and the Post-politics of Climate Change. Hypatia, 2014. 29(3): p. 617-633 10.1111/hypa.12065.
Lecture: Governance via certification and market mechanisms: traceability mechanisms in seafood supply chain
**Obligatory readings: **
Vandergeest, P., Kadfak, A., Melo, C., & Marschke, M. (2025). Methodological nationalism and labour justice in seafood supply chains. Maritime Studies, 24(3), 47.
Nakamura, K. (2024). Is tuna ecolabeling causing fishers more harm than good?. NPJ Ocean Sustainability, 3(1), 39.
Other obligatory material:
Listen to podcast episode: https://www.justseafood.org/podcast-episode-5
Lecture: Governing Land and Agrarian Change
**Obligatory readings: **
Sikor, T., & Lund, C. (2009). Access and property: a question of power and authority. Development and change, 40(1), 1-22.
Braun, B. (2002). The intemperate rainforest: nature, culture, and power on Canada's west coast. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. Chapter 1.
Andreasson, S. (2006). Stand and deliver: Private property and the politics of global dispossession. Political Studies, 54(1), 3-22.
Week 48 – The objects & instruments of Governance – Part II
Lecture: Gender** and Intersectionality in Environmental Governance**
**Obligatory readings: **
Sultana, F. (2020). Political ecology 1: From margins to center. Progress in Human
Geography, 45(1). doi:10.1177/0309132520936751
Zaragocin, S. (2019). Gendered Geographies of Elimination: Decolonial Feminist
Geographies in Latin American Settler Contexts. Antipode, 51(1), 373-392.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12454
Daggett, C., Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Millennium, 2018. 47(1): p. 25-44 10.1177/0305829818775817.
Gonda, N. (2019). Re-politicizing the gender and climate change debate: The
potential of feminist political ecology to engage with power in action in adaptation
policies and projects in Nicaragua. Geoforum, 106, 87-96.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.020
**Additional suggested readings: **
Singh, N. (2017). Becoming a commoner: The commons as sites for affective socio-nature encounters and co-becomings. ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 17(4).
Graybill, J. K. (2019). Emotional Environments of Energy Extraction in Russia. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 109(2), 382-394.
Nightingale, A. J. (2011). Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal. Geoforum, 42(2), 153-162.
**Lecture: Achieving Conservation Goals in Human-inhabited Protected Areas: **The Case of Zapatera Archipelago National Park in Nicaragua
**Obligatory readings: **
Sriskandarajah, N. Givá, N., Hansen, H.P. 2016. Bridging Divides through Spaces of Change: Action Research for Cultivating the Commons in Human-Inhabited Protected Areas in Nicaragua and Mozambique. Chapter 5. In: Hansen, H.P., Nielsen, B., Sriskandarajah, N. and Gunnarsson, E. (eds). Commons, Sustainability, Democratization: Action Rese**arch and the Basic Renewal of Society. 1st ed. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315647951
**Additional suggested reading: **
Arévalo, A. R. 2010. Enhancing Natural Resources Management and Livelihoods in Zapatera Archipelago National Park, Nicaragua. An Action Research Study with Residents of two Communities in Zapatera Island. Masters Thesis. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Uppsala, Sweden. (Read pages 8-21).https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/1072/1/arevalo_a_100427.pdf
Lecture: The role of the ”State”
**Obligatory readings: **
Bridge, G. (2014). Resource geographies II: The resource-state nexus. Progress in Human Geography, 38(1), 118-130.
Neumann, R.P. (2004). Nature-State-Territory: Towards a critical theorization of conservation enclosures. In: Peet, R. and Watts, M. (Eds.), Liberation**ecologies: environment, development, social movements, 2nd ed. London:
Routledge.
Parenti, C. (2015). The Environment Making State: Territory, Nature, and Value. Antipode, 47, pp. 829―848.
Week 49 – Democracy, Participation, Commoning & Resistance – Part 1
Lecture: Community forestry in Nepal: Evolution, institutional mechanisms,
Achievements** **and emerging challenges
**Obligatory readings: **
Ojha, H., Persha, L. and Chhatre, A. 2009. *Community forestry in Nepal: a policy innovation for local livelihoods. Vol. 913. *International Food Policy Research Institute.
**Additional suggested reading: **
Poudyal, B. H, Khatri, D.B., Paudel, D., Marquardt, K., and Khatri, S. 2023. "Examining forest transition and collective action in Nepal’s community forestry." *Land Use Policy 134: 106872. *
Lecture: Seeds for Thoughts - Governance through Commoning
**Obligatory readings: **
Bollier, D. (2020). Commoning as a transformative social paradigm. In The new systems reader (pp. 348-361). Routledge. https://base.socioeco.org/docs/davidbollier.pdf
Sandström, E., Ortman, T., Watson, C. et al. (2024). Saving, sharing and shaping landrace seeds in commons: unravelling seed commoning norms for furthering agrobiodiversity. Agric Hum Values 41, 1825–1840. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-024-10581-4
Lecture: Male-out migration, water common and collective action
**Obligatory reading: **
Leder, S., van der Geest, K., Upadhyaya, R., Adhikari, Y., Büttner, M. (2024): “Rural out-migration and water governance: Gender and social relations mediate and sustain irrigation systems in Nepal” World Development 177. 106544.
Week 59: Democracy, Participation, Commoning & Resistance – Part 2
Lecture: Far-right authoritarianism and the environment
**Obligatory readings: **
McCarthy, J. (2019). Authoritarianism, populism, and the environment: Comparative
experiences, insights, and perspectives. Annals of the American Association of
Geographers, 109(2), 301-313. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1554393
Gonda, N., Democratizing energy justice: Rethinking energy justice in authoritarian times. Progress in Environmental Geography, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687251342264 https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687251342264.
Forchtner, B., Climate change and the far right. WIREs Climate Change, 2019. 10(5): p. e604 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.604.
**Additional suggested reading: **
Loftus, A. (2019). Political ecology III: Who are ‘the people’? Progress in Human
Geography, 44(5), 981-990. doi:10.1177/0309132519884632
Lecture: Indigenous environmental governance: conflicts over resource governance in Sápmi
**Obligatory readings: **
Arora-Jonsson, S. and A. Stiernström, Towards a green transition: A post- and decolonial analysis of the green state of Sweden, in Decolonial Sweden, M.F. MacEachrane, L, Editor. 2024, forthcoming, Routledge: New York.
Joks, S., L. Østmo, and J. Law, Verbing meahcci: Living Sámi lands. The Sociological Review, 2020. 68(2): p. 305-321 10.1177/0038026120905473.
Kuokkanen, R., At the intersection of Arctic indigenous governance and extractive industries: A survey of three cases. The Extractive Industries and Society, 2019. 6(1): p. 15-21 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.08.011.
Week 52. Resistance and Transformative Governance
Lecture: Emancipation, Resistance and Transformative Politics
**Obligatory readings: **
Gonda, N., & Bori, P. J. (2023). Rural politics in undemocratic times: Exploring the
emancipatory potential of small rural initiatives in authoritarian Hungary. Geoforum, 143, 1-13. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103766
Scoones, I., et al., Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.12.004
Naegler, L., ‘Goldman-Sachs doesn’t care if you raise chicken’: the challenges of resistant prefiguration. Social Movement Studies, 2018. 17(5): p. 507-523 https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1495074.
Zaragocin, S., Challenging anglocentric feminist geography from Latin American feminist debates on territoriality, in Feminist geography unbound: Discomfort, bodies, and prefigured futures, M.H. Banu Gökariksel, Christopher Neubert, Sara Smith, Editor. 2021, West Virginia University press: Morgantown, WV. p. 235-252,
**Additional suggested reading: **
Andreucci, D., et al., Energy sovereignty from below: Visions and practices of socioecological transformation in Puerto Rico and Catalonia. Human Geography. 0(0): p. 19427786251317182 10.1177/19427786251317182.
Abu‐Lughod, L., The romance of resistance: Tracing transformations of power through Bedouin women. American Ethnologist, 1990. 17(1): p. 41-55,
2. Caretta, M.A. and S. Zaragocin, Women’s resistance against the extractive industry: embodied and water dimensions. Human Geography, 2020. 13(1): p. 3-5 10.1177/1942778620910893.
Hope, J., Conservation in the Pluriverse: Anti-capitalist struggle, knowledge from resistance and the ‘repoliticisation of nature’ in the TIPNIS, Bolivia. Geoforum, 2021. 124: p. 217-225 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.006.
Vargas Falla, A.M., E. Brink, and E. Boyd, Quiet resistance speaks: A global literature review of the politics of popular resistance to climate adaptation interventions. World Development, 2024. 177: p. 106530 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106530.
Vela-Almeida, D., et al., Imagining Plural Territories of Life
A Feminist Reading of Resistance in the Socio-Territorial Movements in Ecuador. Journal of Latin American Geography, 2020. 19(2): p. 265-287, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48619132
Lecture: Decolonial Perspectives on Environmental Governance
**Obligatory reading: **
Dhillon, J. (2022). Indigenous resurgence: Decolonialization and movements for environmental justice. Berghahn Books.